Bitter Gold Hearts

______ XIII _____

The dead man's mood hadn't soured by the next morning. I got worried. Were we getting to the beginning of the end? I didn't know enough about the Loghyr to be sure what sort of symptom persistent good humor might be. I told him about Saucerhead, leaving out none of the details. "That give you any ideas?"

Several. But you have not given me enough information to form more than one definite opinion.

"A definite one? You? What is it?"

Your little overnight treat was involved up to her cute little ears in the kidnapping of the Stormwarden's son. If not a part of the conspiracy itself, she did at least have guilty knowledge.

I didn't argue. I had formed that suspicion myself. It was good to know I had a mind nearly as agile as his, if not so absolute in its decisions. But him being a genius exempts him from the doubts plaguing us mere mortals.

"Would you care to run through your reasoning?"

It would appear simple and obvious enough for even one of your narrow intellectual focus to unravel. I gave him a big grin. That was his way of zinging me for having dared entertain overnight in my own home. He couldn't shake his good humor completely, though. He added, Troublesome as females are when they step out of their proper roles as connivers, manipulators, gossips, backstabbers, and bearers and nurturers of the young, slaughtering them is not an acceptable form of chastisement. I urge you to persist in your inquiries, Garrett. With all due caution. I would not care to see you share the woman's fate. How would I attend the funeral?

"You're just a sentimental fool, aren't you?"

Too often too much so for my own welfare.

"Ha! Dirty truth gets caught with its nose sticking out. If I get scrubbed, you might have to get off your mental duff and do some honest geniusing in order to keep a roof over your head."

I am an artist, Garrett. I do not—

"And I'm a frog prince under a witch's spell."

"Mr. Garrett?"

I turned. Dean was at the door. "What?"

"That woman is here again."

"The one who was here yesterday?"

"The same." You would have thought he smelled spoiled onions in his pantry the way his face was puckered.

"Take her into the office. Don't let her touch you. It might be communicable." I let him get out of hearing before adding, "You might carry it to your nieces and suddenly have them all turn desirable."

You ride him too hard, Garrett. He is a sensitive man with an abiding concern for his loved ones.

"I let him get out of hearing, didn't I?"

I would not want to lose him.

"Me neither. I'd have to go back to cleaning up after you myself." I got out then, ignoring him trying to come up with the last word. We could kill a whole day that way. Amber was looking her best and sensed that I saw and felt it. She tried starting up where she left off. I told her, "I've decided to find that money for you. I think we're going to have to stick to business and move damned fast if we want to catch the trail before it's cold. I did a lot of legwork yesterday, poking under rocks. I came up with a sack full of air. I'm starting to think the whole thing was an out-of-town operation."

"Garrett!" She wanted to play. But she could accept two hundred thousand marks gold as a good reason for not, for the moment. I figured her for the type who could get hooked on the challenge. That might be my next problem.

"What do you mean, out-of-town operation?"

"Like I said yesterday, a thing involving two hundred thousand and snatching Raver Styx's kid is going to take big planning and leave big tracks, even when the best pros are working the job. One way to give the tracks a chance to disappear in the mud is to do your design work, recruiting, purchasing, and rehearsal somewhere far away. Then you might take the gold somewhere else, still. In fact, with so much gold involved, you might want to tie up loose ends by erasing any connection between yourself and the kidnap victim."

"You mean kill off the people who helped you?"

"Yes."

"That's horrible. That's... that's terrible."

"It's a terrible world. With a lot of terrible people in it. Not to mention things like ogres and ghouls. Or vampires and wolf men, who see the rest of us as prey, though they used to be human themselves."

"It's horrible."

"Of course. But it's the kind of thing we may run into. You still game? We're partners, you're going to have to carry your half of the load."

"Me? How can I help?"

"You can get me a chance to talk to your brother and Amiranda."

She looked puzzled. Not too bright, my Amber? But decorative. Definitely decorative. "I haven't dug up but one clue yet, and it's not worth squat by itself."

"What is it?"

"Uh-uh. I keep my cards to my chest till I get a better picture."

"Why do you need to talk to Karl and Amiranda?" "Karl because he's the only one who had any direct contact with the kidnappers—except maybe Domina Dount, when she delivered the ransom. Amiranda because she works for the Domina and might have picked up something useful. I can't go grill Willa Dount. She'd want the gold back herself if she knew we were looking for it. Wouldn't she?"

"Yeah. But Karl would want a cut if he knew what we were doing. He wants out of that house as bad as I do. Amiranda, the same way."

"You get me a chance to talk to them. I'll think of some reason for it."

"All right. But you'd better be careful. Especially with Amiranda. She's a little witch."

"You don't like her?"

"Not very much. She's smarter than me and when she wants she can make herself almost as pretty. Even my own mother always treats her better than me. But I don't think I hate her. I just wish she'd go away."

"And she wants to get away as badly as you and your brother do? When she gets better treatment?" "Better than awful is still bad, Garrett." "How soon can you fix it so I can see Karl?" "It'll be hard. He won't be able to sneak out right now. Domina has Courter watching him every minute. She says the kidnapping won't stay a secret and when the news gets out how much the ransom was, somebody else might try it again. Would they?"

"That happens. There are a lot of lazy, stupid crooks who try to get by imitating success. Your family will be at risk till your mother takes some action to make it plain that folks who mess with her live short and awful lives." "She probably wouldn't even care." She would care even if she had no use or love for her offspring, but I had no inclination to illuminate Amber about the symbols and trappings of power and what the powerful have to do to keep them polished and frightening. "The next step has to be your brother. If he can't come to me, I'll go to him. You arrange something. I'll follow you home about a half hour behind you. I'll hang around outside somewhere. You give me a signal when it's all right to come in. Might as well set it for me to see Amiranda, too. What will the signal be?"

I had chosen a conspiratorial tone. It worked. She got into the spirit of doings shadowed and sinister. "I'll flash a mirror out my window. Give me five minutes after that, then meet me at the postern." "Which window?"

While she explained, I reflected that she had this gimmick too pat to have come up with it on the spur of the moment. I hoped it was a device she used to sneak lovers inside. If she had been getting away with that, the notion might be marginally workable. If she was setting me up...

But she had no reason that I could see. It was plain that her only interest was laying hands on her mother's gold. You get paranoid in this business. But maybe paranoids get that way because of all the people out to get them.

"Better scoot along now," I told her. "Before they miss you up there and start wondering."

"A half hour wouldn't make any difference, would it?"

"A half hour might make all the difference." "I can get real stubborn when I really want something, Garrett."

"I'll bet you can. I hope you're as stubborn about the gold if we find things getting tight." I guided her toward the front door.

"Tight? How could it get dangerous?"

"Are you kidding? Not to be melodramatic"—like hell! —"but it could get to be a long, dark, narrow valley between your mother and the kidnappers before we get that gold socked away."

She looked at me with big eyes while that sank in. Then she turned on the smile. "Keep that golden carrot dangling out front and this mule won't even see the brooding hills."

So. A little slow, maybe, but gutsy. Old Dean was watching from down the hall, exercising his disapproving scowl. I patted Amber on the fanny. "That's the spirit, kid. Remember. I'm half an hour behind you. Try not to leave me standing in the street too long."

She spun around and laid a kiss on me that must have curled Dean's hair and toes. It did mine. She backed off, winked, and scooted.